Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs visited TCM

The Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs, Maria van der Hoeven, was very impressed by the technology centre for CO2 capture she visited today at Mongstad.

It's very impressive, not only by the scale of the installation, but also its scope. Doing everything within carbon capture requires an installation like this,” van der Hoeven said. She was very interested in cooperation on carbon capture and storage with Norway and TCM.

The Dutch company Shell is already an important partner in the TCM project. The delegation, consisting of several business leaders from the Netherlands, was interested in learning about TCM and received a thorough introduction in how the technology centre will be expanded and operated from, among others, TCM director Tore Amundsen and project manager Sverre Overå.

The Economic Affairs Minister and her delegation was accompanied by State Secretary Robin Kåss from the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.

“Holland is an important partner for Norway in the global work on CO2 capture. It is positive that Holland is using the state visit to exchange experiences in this field,” Kåss says.

The technology centre for CO2 capture at Mongstad represents a concrete contribution to the necessary development and testing of CO2 capture technologies. According to the plan, the centre will be ready for operation in late 2011/early 2012. Two different capture technologies will be tested on two different exhaust gas streams with different CO2 content. This makes the installation one of the largest of its kind in the world.

After the program, Kåss meets representatives from Austrheim and Lindås municipalities, as well as from the HOG Energi interest group.

TCM is the world’s largest centre for testing and improving CO2 capture technologies. The acquired knowledge will improve the basis for CO2 capture projects aimed at combatting climate change. TCM is a collaboration between the Norwegian government, Statoil, Shell and Sasol. The installation is currently about 40 per cent complete.